Extracted from an article by Kathleen Hennessey: When Michele Bachmann [R-MN] took the podium at a rally against health legislation this month, she dutifully hit the highlights of the Republican argument against the bill: It's too expensive, it will depress wages, it punishes the middle class. But because she is Michele Bachmann, she did not stop there.

In less than eight minutes, the Minnesota congresswoman told the cheering crowd of conservative activists that the Democratic healthcare bill isn't just bad policy -- it's unconstitutional. She invoked Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade," though it memorializes a suicide mission. She dissed the United Nations, recalled Elian Gonzalez's journey from Cuba, and offered this holiday greeting: "That is our wish for fellow citizens here in the United States -- for freedom, not for government enslavement!" The crowd roared.

. . . A new GOP website aimed at rebutting President Obama's jobs proposal, which features only a few lawmakers, includes Bachmann along with Republican leaders. And recently, the Republican National Committee put Bachmann on a conference call to discuss healthcare with a host of grass-root groups, including tea party activists. "There's no question that congresswoman Bachmann fires up the base," said LeRoy Coleman, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee. "She's a powerful and galvanizing voice for this party."

That is not how all Republicans see Bachmann, 53, who once said that she was "hot for Jesus" and is quick to call Obama's governing plans "socialism." Some want to keep her at arm's length. When Bachmann declared that she would ignore almost all questions on the census form, calling it an unconstitutional effort to collect personal data, three fellow House Republicans called her stance "illogical, illegal and not in the best interest of our country."

. . . Taking up issues outside the mainstream, she proposed a constitutional amendment that would bar the president from adopting a currency issued by an entity other than the United States. Bachmann had asserted that China wanted to create a "multinational" currency.

Last year, she introduced the "Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act," opposing a government-ordered phase-out of traditional light bulbs in favor of more efficient bulbs. Last spring, she worried about expanding AmeriCorps community service programs, calling them "reeducation camps for young people" and "politically correct forums." . . .

"Only Sarah Palin seems to send them into wilder convulsions of hate and arrogance and condescension," it read. Bachmann claims she is not intentionally provoking those convulsions. "I'm a lovable little fuzz ball," she told MinnPost .com -- borrowing a phrase that Rush Limbaugh has used to describe himself.